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Question: Judging by the sensations of the last few days, we are entering the next state after the convention and can already make a new attack. In the near future we are planning to concentrate internally, to unite together quietly, to enter the picture of the spiritual reality. What would you advise us to focus our efforts on?

Answer: There is the current state and the desirable one, and there is the transition between the two, which we have to overcome. The means to go from one state to the next can be similar to a convention: a focus of our efforts, hopes, forces, joy, actions, and events, where we are all together and we focus all our efforts over a few days and try to realize them non-stop.

But there are also other means that can help us go from one state to another. Kabbalists used them mainly for more internal concentration, which they attained by making external actions only in order to concentrate everything in the inner actions.

That is to say, they assembled together, preparing all of the external conditions so they would not interfere and would help them focus, such as by meeting in a cave, an isolated, quiet place, away from all possible external disturbances, and in a special state of day or night, which also influence a person. In short, they arranged everything so the friends could unite with one another internally, with the help of inner, more spiritual efforts.

Obviously, we must also make actions like that. But for that we need preparation and the realization of the great importance of this event, so we don’t end up with something boring or useless, something that doesn’t provide fulfillment.

Every person must understand that progress is possible only by virtue of efforts, that “penny by penny adds up to a great capital,” and that in the sum of these efforts, in the efforts to unite them together, in one place, in one Kli or vessel, we attain the common might that is called a cry, a demand—and then the gates open up to us.

We carried out a great preparation in Israel and in the whole world during the convention, and now we must perform several opposite actions—in more internal concentration, in humility. Let’s try to do this. How effective this will be is up to us.[63955]From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/11, The Book of Zohar